Gereedschappen die in deze demontage worden gebruikt

Inleiding

Long gone are the days of analog boomboxes; say hello to portable, wireless speakers. The popularity of digital musical content demands a new and innovative way of listening to our music. Meet the Sonos Play:3 All-in-One Wireless Music Player with 3 Integrated Speakers.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to introduce the Sonos Play:3 all-in-one wireless* music player.

*Amazon puts it best: The Play:3 "easily connects to your wireless router with included Ethernet cable or wirelessly anywhere with addition of Sonos Bridge." So if you want to use it wirelessly, you'll need to shell out another $50 for the Sonos Bridge. Otherwise, Ethernet's the only way to connect to it.

What exactly does this all-in-one music player contain? We're glad you asked:

Voeg opmerking toe

How difficult is it to replace the two mid-range drivers and the one tweeter? Not very difficult. Each is held in by four Phillips screws, for a total of twelve to pull out the trifecta of music-emitters.

Why do we stress that these are measured resistances? While speaker ratings are given in ohms, the unit of resistance, they're actually values of impedance, which is dependent on the specific frequency being played. Home stereo speaker impedances are usually 8 Ω, but because a multimeter can only read resistance, our measurement will be lower.

Voeg opmerking toe

We found three antennas in the Sonos Play:3, all attached to a communications card on the motherboard and held in place with a soft glue.

Through a combination of the three antennas, the Play:3 communicates over SonosNet, a proprietary wireless mesh network that connects the player to a Sonos Bridge or another player (but not your home wireless network).

The length of the antenna traces are listed on the antenna board (10 and 23.2 mm). The antenna design seems to be that of an Inverted F-Antenna, common in small electronics and implemented to reduce antenna size and improve multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems.

Voeg opmerking toe

Behold, the towering metropolis that is populated by an array of capacitors and inductors.

Notice the globs of glue splattered over many of the components. The smallest rattle or vibration inside the Play:3 will cause quite the uproar (and probably a product return), so everything is firmly glued in place.

We have noticed a design flaw with this circuit board, after fixing quite a few of these now. The screw coming out of the heatsink next to the caps gets very hot. It's proximity to the caps makes the caps blow and burn out the circuit board. We have replaced many of the caps with better rated ones, and bent them away from the screw as best we can, but they will eventually blow again. If they increase the space between this screw coming out of the heatsink away from the caps, then the reliability of the device will be much improved, and stop these from blowing every 2-4 years of use.

Voeg opmerking toe

At long last we've found the advertisedbass radiator, a passive speaker cone secured in the very back of the case that forms an inexpensive alternative to a powered subwoofer.

Interested in knowing how a bass radiator works? Wonder no more. As the mid-range drivers move back and forth, they create air pressure inside the enclosure. A bass radiator uses that air pressure to create a "bassier" sound, without taking up excess room. It's similar in principle to a reflex port in an enclosure, without taking up a lot of space.

Preamp line-out. I'm not certain, but sometimes these class D amplifiers act as the D2A as well as the amplifier, so there is no internal low level analog signal to tap off of. I think a simple 22:1 resistor divider from the speaker terminals would do it for you. You may have to combine the divider outputs from both the midrange and the tweeter. Likely the response will have been tailored for these specific drivers by the digital crossover, but that's probably OK. I would come off the positive terminal of each driver with a 2.2k resistor. Connect the other end of each resistor together and then to a 100 ohm resistor to ground. The line level will be across the 100 ohm resistor.

It would be a complex wiring diagram for a pre-amp line out. It would involve purchasing and developing a circuit for a DAC chip that supports I2S. Either that or a chip which can convert said input into SPDIF. The good news is the amplifier chip is also the DSP, so if you managed to pull and decode the I2S data you would have an unaltered digital audio signal. You might lose volume control unless you pulled that into your DAC as well. It would still be an interesting project if one had the time and money. Of course Sonos could just stop ripping people off with the Connect...

I have a Sonos Play 5 that I used outside - and one of the components got just a little moist - so one or more of the many electronic elements in there is fried. But I have no reason to think any of the speakers are bad... I have the patient open on the table now, and I can take out any part. So if anyone needs a speaker or connector etc I guess post here. Or, if you have a Play 5 with a bad speaker and the electronics are still good, and you want to get rid of it, let me know!

Looking at the datasheet of the STMicroelectronics STA339BW (Class D Power Amplifier on the board), it seems as if the amplifier only accept Inter-Integrated Sound (I2S) as input. This is digital sound data from the embedded system circuitry, so I don't think an auxiliary input (analog) would be possible without some massaging and extra components. Even then, the fidelity of the audio would be decreased, since one would have to re-sample the analog signal (already coming from some DAC whose sample rate is 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz) to get an I2S signal. It would be akin to using a copier to copy an already-copied picture. The quality will just go down.

I'm currently trying to work out some way of playing my own selection of music (as I believe that is the primary concern for anyone with this device). I was thinking I would perhaps use a beaglebone to connect a spotify server. I'll let people know if I find anything that works out.

Sonos added a firmware update after this article was written where they no longer require the proprietary SonosNet and now connects directly to the router on wifi after you have done the setup to configure the wireless settings.

Now an even better and cheaper product to own but the competition is catching up..

I was wondering if i can somehow connect to a "pre-amplified" signal from Sonos and add it to a new amplifier (i.e. replacing an expensive Sonos connect amp) with a Sonos1... Adding a nice KEF speakers amplified by a Marantz Amplifier... Any ideas if you know someone who have ever done such?

Trying to figure out a way to hack the Play 3 to accept input from Chromecast by physically connecting the Chromecast audio puck somehow. I have one Play 3 which sounds great, but going to a centrally controlled Chromecast system controlled by a Google Home device due to lower cost.

Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act Act of 1975 prohibits companies from denying warranty claims if the customer used non mfr parts. Nor can a mfr prohibit you from opening your hardware. Taking apart your hardware to clean it from dust (which causes heat build up and component failure) does not violate a warranty. If a company denies a claim simply because something was opened that is indeed an illegal practice. A company will only get away with this sort of practice until it bumps into someone willing to fight. Then their game is over.

Anybody know if this device will continue to function after removal of the communications board. I want to remove all wi-fi from Sonos permanently and use ethernet-based system only. Have tried disabling wi-fi signal via commands sent through network (as seen on You Tube), but question the effectiveness of this method. Thanks.

I'm debating tearing out all the electronics from my Play 3 and replacing them with an aftermarket amp + Chromecast audio. My only concern is the “2.1” nature of the system. The Play 5 appears to be a “Mid-Mid-High” mix and most COTS 2.1 amplifiers are “Mid-Mid-Low” Any thoughts on how to power only the speakers with a COTS amplifier?

Before I tear my Play 3 apart - it was dropped and is not producing bass as previously, all other frequencies seem as per normal to my ear - I’m wondering if anyone can point me to what I should focus on assessing, especially if I find the bass radiator is intact?